James Corden: ‘Martin Scorsese has made mistakes — why can’t I?’

James Corden is a modern Renaissance man: comedian, actor, writer, awards show host, and Anna Wintour’s new best friend. He tells Richard Godwin about how One Man, Two Guvnors revived his career and why he won’t be moving to LA any time soon

Ever since he won over the nation as the hearty buffoon Smithy in Gavin & Stacey, James Corden has bundled himself into some unlikely circles. The 34-year-old actor and writer has been on nights out with David Beckham and Prince William and established himself as the presenter-elect of the Brit Awards as well as the face of Sports Relief, neatly cornering comedy, pop and sport.

Presenting this year’s Evening Standard Theatre Awards, he reminded us of his roots on the stage. Corden was one of Alan Bennett’s original History Boys and recently completed 495 performances of Richard Bean’s farce, One Man, Two Guvnors, in London and New York, for which he won nearly every award going. ‘I’m absolutely terrified,’ he said beforehand. ‘There are a lot more important people here than I realised.’ However, by the time he had performed a cabaret number (‘What keeps us all treading the boards?/It’s all for the love of awards’) and rhymed ‘Colin’ with ‘girth’, he’d brought his ramshackle charm to bear on the theatrical establishment.

Corden also spent much of the evening deep in conversation with Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue. She is a long-time supporter of the awards, which were established by her father Charles Wintour, former editor of the Evening Standard. Onstage, Corden referred to her throughout as his ‘wife’. ‘She saw One Man, Two Guvnors five times,’ Corden tells me. ‘We went to lunch quite regularly, just the two of us, in New York. She’s completely adorable.’

It’s a mutual love-in. American Vogue ran an interview with Corden, praising his ‘generous avoir de pois’ and ‘genial face’ and comparing his comic gifts to Laurel and Hardy. When Corden was nominated for a Tony Award, Wintour dressed him and his long-term girlfriend (now wife), Julia Carey. After he won the award, Wintour held a dinner in his honour at her home. ‘She’s got this incredible table that seats about 40. Half the cast of Saturday Night Live was there, Harvey Weinstein, Michael Kors, Eddie Redmayne, Seth MacFarlane…’

Mention the contrast between a Jack the lad from Buckinghamshire and the feared editrix, and he becomes protective. ‘I’ve never seen this side of her that people talk about. My hunch is that it doesn’t exist. I find her very warm, a lot of fun, incredibly bright.’ They do have much in common: both are British, both have made waves in America and both have an exacting work ethic. ‘I love hard work. One Man, Two Guvnors was so physically tiring I ached all the time, but I took a massive amount of pride in the fact that I only ever missed two shows.’ (Once to host the Brit Awards; once when he had a vomiting bug.) ‘It made me realise I don’t want to ever go more than about two years without doing a play.’

I wonder if the experience of One Man, Two Guvnors helped to refocus him. There seemed an element of atonement to the role. It arrived at a time when he was becoming better known for his tragi-comic courtship of Lily Allen, a high-profile break-up from the actress Sheridan Smith and general tomfoolery at The Hawley Arms in Camden. ‘Someone said to me that it turned my career around,’ he says. ‘It’s true, there were probably people who didn’t think I was talented. But that’s just their opinion. There is really no one who hasn’t made mistakes in their career. I’m always shocked that people would be so surprised that I might make mistakes. Martin Scorsese has made mistakes — why can’t I?’

What has been his biggest mistake? ‘There was a time when I did lose track of what’s important: the work you’re doing and the directors you’re working with. It’s so intoxicating, that first rush of fame, you start to think that perhaps you’re a bit more than you really are. That’s what the play gave me more than anything else — a clarity. A clarity that what’s important is just to follow good directors.’ He speaks glowingly of Nicholas Hytner, the director of the National Theatre, who built the entire show around him.

Currently, he is filming One Chance, a biopic about the singer Paul Potts, who won the in-augural Britain’s Got Talent contest in 2007 with a rendition of ‘Nessun dorma’. What was he just saying about making only good work? ‘Yeah, I can completely understand why that would be anyone’s reaction to it. But, essentially, it’s a film about a boy from a steel town in Wales who, despite so very many hurdles, just wants to be an opera singer. It’s like a sports movie, really, but for opera.’

Following that, he will film his new sitcom, The Wrong Mans, which he has been writing with his Gavin & Stacey co-star Mathew Baynton. ‘It’s kind of an action… thriller… comedy.’ That sounds ominously like Lesbian Vampire Killers, a flop that he made with Mathew Horne in 2009. ‘Well, let’s hope it isn’t anything like that,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘It’s about two guys from an office who get embroiled in a conspiracy. It’s an ambitious project and I hope we can get it right.’

The writing part of Corden’s career often gets overlooked — Gavin & Stacey, which he co-wrote with Ruth Jones, was, after all, one of the landmark sitcoms of the past ten years. He has relished the different challenges that The Wrong Mans has presented. ‘It’s difficult to get all that plot into the time frame and still make it funny, whereas on Gavin & Stacey you could do six pages about them ordering an Indian meal. A show like this, you’re constantly going: “But would that happen? Why wouldn’t they call the police?” ’

In all, the James Corden I speak to is not the ‘YES MATE!’ bear-hugger of media legend, but surprisingly thoughtful. He married Julia three months ago and is enjoying being a husband and father. ‘I felt married anyway — we have a 19-month-old son [Max] and we’ve lived together for two-and-a-half years now. Lots of friends of mine asked why I was getting married, but you just want to show that this is different from your past relationships.’

The guest list at his wedding at Babington House in Somerset reflected his celebrity reach: Kylie Minogue, David Walliams, Michael McIntyre, Harry Styles and Matt Smith, as well as his Gavin & Stacey collaborators Jones and Horne. He and Julia have lived in Primrose Hill since 2007, with fellow History Boy Dominic Cooper four doors down, and Alan Bennett around the corner.

He would like to take a break, but the offers keep coming — two more plays on Broadway in the past two weeks and there is a chance that he will be making a film in LA in April. ‘It’s great to have conversations where people say, “What would you like to do?” It’s not lost on me how privileged that position is. But what’s important is the work that you’re doing, not the country that you’re in. I would much rather be in a play at the Royal Court than in Los Angeles making Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. D’you know what I mean?’

Does he find it hard, taking a running jump into his public persona, I wonder? ‘In public, it’s either on a stage or on a chat show. I don’t consider myself to be incredibly confident, or really lacking in confidence. When you’re on Jonathan Ross’ or Graham Norton’s show, inevitably there’s something to sell. And there’s a live audience, you’re sat between Cameron Diaz and Tinie Tempah — I don’t really see it as “me”.’ He pauses. ‘It would be odd if it was.’